For over one hundred years there have been efforts to produce a citrus and other fruit picking machine that would alleviate the time consuming process and prohibitive expense of hand picking fruit. Another major factor involved in such efforts is that frequently sufficient manual labor is not readily available.
The fruit picking machines presently available are unsatisfactory for wide spread use, because of low volume picking or potential damage to trees by shakers, resulting from their action of gripping the trunk or a major branch of tree and violently shaking said tree to dislodge the fruit.